Note to Self: I don't understand what's being asked here: Yes, Susan is right; yes, the index-number problem rears its ugly head; yes, there are absolute numbers and there are employment shares; yes, there is manufacturing; yes, there is non-computer manufacturing; yes, there are traditional blue-collar occupations...

On TV: Jerome Powell should have cut rates today: "Brad DeLong, economics professor at the University of California Berkeley, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss his take on the Fed rate decision to leave interest rates unchanged...

Fareed Zakaria: The Self-Destruction of American Power: "One is struck by the ways in which Washington—from an unprecedented position—mishandled its hegemony and abused its power, losing allies and emboldening enemies. And now, under the Trump administration, the United States seems to have lost interest, indeed lost faith, in the ideas and purpose that animated its international presence for three-quarters of a century...

Christina Romer (1994): The End of Economic History?: "Perhaps more than any particular finding or direct implication, the fact that the debate about stabilization and the new data collection efforts are being carried out by a mixture of economic historians and macroeconomists is the most desirable development of all. As with all of the other recent developments in economic history that have been discussed here, the bringing together of researchers with different perspectives has not only stimulated exciting research, it has also meant that the lessons of history have been incorporated into other fields. In this way, the end of economic history has really been just the beginning of better and richer economics...

AlphaChat: Jay Shambaugh on Tools to Fight the Next Recession: "The economist and Brookings Institution senior fellow talks to FT contributor Megan Greene about the fiscal policies that lawmakers could arrange now that would automatically kick in when some of the early signs of a slowdown start to appear...

Ed Nawotka: Daunt Relishes Challenge of Leading B&N: "Daunt said his priority with B&N is not to cut costs, but to find a way to arrest the decline in sales and return the company to growth, much as he did at Waterstones. The key, he said, will be investment.... Above all, Daunt expressed calm about the transition, and advocated for patience...

Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves, and Kris James Mitchener: Public Debt Through the Ages: "Periods when debt-to-GDP ratios rose explosively as a result of wars, depressions and financial crises also have a long history. Many of these episodes resulted in debt-management problems resolved through debasements and restructurings. Less widely appreciated are successful debt consolidation episodes.... We analyze the economic and political circumstances that made these successful debt consolidation episodes possible...

Josefin Meyer, Carmen M. Reinhart, and Christoph Trebesch: Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo: "220,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering 91 countries.... Returns on external sovereign bonds have been sufficiently high to compensate for risk. Real ex-post returns averaged 7% annually across two centuries, including default episodes, major wars, and global crises... an excess return of around 4% above US or UK government bonds... are hard to reconcile with canonical theoretical models and with the degree of credit risk.... Full repudiation is rare; the median haircut is below 50%...

Larry Summers: The Economist Who Helped Me Find My Calling: "Working for [Feldstein], I saw what I had not seen in the classroom: that rigorous and close statistical analysis of data can provide better answers to economic questions, and possibly better lives for millions of people. A doctor can treat a patient. An economist, through research or policy advice, can improve life for a population. Marty was appointed president of the NBER in 1977—a position he held for more than 30 years. The NBER became my professional home and occasionally my literal home as I slept near its computer terminals.... Marty was a magnet for talent.... Marty cared about people’s economic analysis, not their political affiliation. That is why he mentored stars like Jeffrey Sachs and Raj Chetty, who disagreed with him on many questions...

China Digital Space: Grass-Mud Horse: "Mascot of Chinese netizens fighting for free expression, symbolizing defiance of Internet censorship. The grass-mud horse, whose name sounds nearly the same as "f--- your mother" (cào nǐ mā 肏你妈), was originally created to skirt government censorship.... The Communist Party is often described as the 'mother' of the people, so saying 'f--- your mother' also suggests 'f--- the Party'...

Bloomberg: U.K. Tory Prime Minister Candidates Unprepared for Brexit Reality: "Irresponsible tax and spending promises predominated. Implausible approaches to Brexit were aired, along with nonchalant talk of defaulting on public debts. Cocaine proved unexpectedly salient. One thing nearly all the candidates had in common was a refusal to accept the precarious position the next party leader will be in.... A chaotic no-deal exit on Halloween. Alarmingly, most of the candidates have suggested that they’d be okay with that last option. In doing so, they seem to be following May’s playbook of keeping the worst-case scenario on the table for negotiating purposes. If that tactic ever made sense, it’s now doubly wrongheaded. For starters... imposing the most damaging version of a policy that about half the country already despises, and one that Parliament has already explicitly rejected.... If the Tory candidates recognize the urgency of confronting hard truths, they’re showing few signs of it...

Uncertainty—fear that Brexit will be badly handled—is "killing investment and market sentiment toward the U.K", says Marcus Ashworth. Therefore, says Marcus Ashworth, let's choose a Prime inister—Boris Johnson—guaranteed to handle Brexit as badly as possible. And Ashworth is one of the smartest, most reasonable, and most coherent of the Brexziteers. And he's an incoherent, unreasonable, and rather dim nutter: Marcus Ashworth: Boris Johnson Is Underpriced By the Financial Markets: "Sterling could well get a lift if the former Mayor of London becomes prime minister.... The fact that several of the candidates to replace her are seemingly happy to let Britain crash out of the European Union without an agreement (with bookies’ favorite Boris Johnson foremost among them) has spooked foreign exchange traders. But plenty of people would welcome some kind of clarity.... It’s the uncertainty that’s killing investment and market sentiment toward the U.K. The flipside of this is the sense that people just want to get Brexit done...

That the Conservative Party appears to want a no-deal Brexit is as bad and destructive as the Republican Party wanting Donald Trump for president: Martin Wolf: No-Deal Brexit Would Be a Lunacy Wrapped Up in a Stupidity: "AThe cost to Britain’s economy and its standing in the world would be immense.... It will be disruptive. Nobody knows quite how disruptive.... EU co-operation... would be limited.... The jump from being a full EU member to this very different status is sure to be disorderly. This is why standard trade agreements have long transition periods.... The long-run costs of being without any deal with the EU would be substantial.... For such reasons, no deal could not possibly be the end of negotiations, but a shift to new ones from a far weaker position.... The EU knows that no deal would weigh more heavily on the UK.... Leaving the EU without a deal would impair the UK’s credibility as a partner for everybody...

How Lenny Mendonca actually found time to teach this course while coordinating California's economic development plans is beyond me: but he is a very, very high-energy person: Lenny Mendonca: Business and Public Policy Perspectives on US Inequality: "Inequality in the United States–Definition and Facts. Inequality in the United States–Why Do Businesses and MBA Students Care? Housing and Transportation. Place-Based Policies. Race and Inequality. Opportunity and Early Education. Higher Education. Immigration (and Effects on Other American Workers). Low-wage Workers. Tax Policy–The 1%. Work in the Future and Universal Basic Income...

Eric Chyn, Samantha Gold, and Justine S. Hastings: The Returns to Early-Life Interventions for Very Low Birth Weight Children: "Administrative data from Rhode Island... regression discontinuity design... 1,500-gram threshold for Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) status.... Threshold crossing causes more intense in-hospital care, in line with prior studies. Threshold crossing also causes a 0.34 standard deviation increase in test scores in elementary and middle school, a 17.1 percentage point increase in the probability of college enrollment, and 66,997 decrease in social program expenditures by age 14. We explore potential mechanisms driving these impacts...

Doug Jones: My Handaxe: "People... have some mental machinery for thinking about physical space.... The cognitive psychology of space gets retooled for thinking about close and distant social relationships, or time ahead and behind.... Barbara Tversky’s just-published Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought seems to make the argument at greater length; I’m looking forward to reading it. For a while most of the evidence of repurposing spatial cognition for more abstract relationships came from linguistics, but there’s now some corroboration from neurology...

The New York Times decides to mark Father's Day by misogynistic wife-slagging! As I said, moral fault attaches to those who support or work for the New York Times: Ana Mardoll: "Obviously they want rage clicks, but this is such a fascinating misuse of a common phrase. 'More than their fair share"' necessarily implies that someone else is slacking. Since marriages often have only two people in them, that leaves... the wife... New York Times Opinion: "On Father’s Day, the honor of dads must be defended, says @DouthatNYT. Yes, fathers spend less time doing household chores. But when you add up housework, paid work and childcare, married fathers today are doing even more than their fair share...

Adam Kotsko's mode of discourse is well outside my normal wheelhouse, but I do think that this is important. It is generally a mistake in America to think that religious arguments will persuade anyone of anything political or moral. In America, at least, religion tends to act as a righteousness multiplier rather than a set of principles and ideas that can be used for persuasion and to get people to think reflectively: Adam Kotsko: The Political Theology of Trump: "This brings us to a scriptural parallel that evangelicals themselves have drawn with Trump: Cyrus the Great, the Persian Emperor who allowed Israelite priestly elites to settle back in the Promised Land.... The Prophet Isaiah sings this pagan ruler’s praises, even calling him God’s “anointed”... “Messiah” in Hebrew or “Christ” in Greek—and promising divine assistance in his ongoing conquest.... IT’S THE BIBLICAL VERSION of 'only Nixon can go to China'. Only a pagan ruler who knows nothing of the God of Israel... can restore the righteous remnant to the Promised Land.... The use of an ignorant, pagan ruler makes the divine agency unmistakable from the Israelite perspective. How could it be more clear that God is really controlling events when his purpose is fulfilled without the involvement of any conscious human intention? My mom suggested that something similar was at play on that painful phone call the morning after the election, when she wondered aloud whether the improbable events that made Trump President against the American people’s will spoke of a divine intention.... There is not much that any of us can do to convince evangelical Trump supporters that their anointed one is an antichrist...

Jemima Kelly: Facebook’s Libra: Blockchain, but without the Blocks or Chain: "This is just one of a series of Alphaville posts on Libra coin, which we are calling Breaking the Zuck Buck, in which we will seek to show how nonsensical, pointless, stupid, risky, badly thought-out and blockchainless the whole thing is...

Berkeley Economics: Economics CIP Code Update and FAQs | Department of Economics: "(5) What are the practical effects of this change for domestic students? For international students? The reclassification of Economics as a STEM major may enhance research and funding opportunities, job market placement and diversity and growth in the field that can be associated with other STEM majors. For international students, the STEM classification increases accessibility to US job opportunities with an extension of work visas, etc. This was not an available option with our current general economics CIP code.... (6) As an international student, how will this impact my Optional Practical Training (OPT)? OPT is work authorization available to F-1 international students who have been full-time students for at least two consecutive semesters and who plan to seek employment in the United States in their fields of study. On March 11, 2016, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a new STEM Final Rule, with effective date May 10, 2016. Eligible students may now apply for a 24 Month STEM Extension up to 90 days prior to the expiration of their OPT Employment Authorization Document (EAD). Our CIP code approval qualifies our degree programs as a STEM related field of study for the Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension for employment of 24 months. For further information about your OPT options, please consult with the Berkeley International Office (BIO)...

Wikipedia: Nik Kershaw: "Kershaw came to prominence in the early 1980s as a solo artist, releasing eight singles that entered the Top 40 charts in the UK during the 1980s, including 'Wouldn't It Be Good', 'Dancing Girls', 'I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me', 'Human Racing', 'The Riddle', 'Wide Boy', 'Don Quixote' and 'When a Heart Beats'...

Note to Self: I don't understand what's being asked here: Yes, Susan is right; yes, the index-number problem rears its ugly head; yes, there are absolute numbers and there are employment shares; yes, there is manufacturing; yes, there is non-computer manufacturing; yes, there are traditional blue-collar occupations...

On TV: Jerome Powell should have cut rates today: "Brad DeLong, economics professor at the University of California Berkeley, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss his take on the Fed rate decision to leave interest rates unchanged...

Fareed Zakaria: The Self-Destruction of American Power: "One is struck by the ways in which Washington—from an unprecedented position—mishandled its hegemony and abused its power, losing allies and emboldening enemies. And now, under the Trump administration, the United States seems to have lost interest, indeed lost faith, in the ideas and purpose that animated its international presence for three-quarters of a century...

Christina Romer (1994): The End of Economic History?: "Perhaps more than any particular finding or direct implication, the fact that the debate about stabilization and the new data collection efforts are being carried out by a mixture of economic historians and macroeconomists is the most desirable development of all. As with all of the other recent developments in economic history that have been discussed here, the bringing together of researchers with different perspectives has not only stimulated exciting research, it has also meant that the lessons of history have been incorporated into other fields. In this way, the end of economic history has really been just the beginning of better and richer economics...

AlphaChat: Jay Shambaugh on Tools to Fight the Next Recession: "The economist and Brookings Institution senior fellow talks to FT contributor Megan Greene about the fiscal policies that lawmakers could arrange now that would automatically kick in when some of the early signs of a slowdown start to appear...

Ed Nawotka: Daunt Relishes Challenge of Leading B&N: "Daunt said his priority with B&N is not to cut costs, but to find a way to arrest the decline in sales and return the company to growth, much as he did at Waterstones. The key, he said, will be investment.... Above all, Daunt expressed calm about the transition, and advocated for patience...

Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves, and Kris James Mitchener: Public Debt Through the Ages: "Periods when debt-to-GDP ratios rose explosively as a result of wars, depressions and financial crises also have a long history. Many of these episodes resulted in debt-management problems resolved through debasements and restructurings. Less widely appreciated are successful debt consolidation episodes.... We analyze the economic and political circumstances that made these successful debt consolidation episodes possible...

Josefin Meyer, Carmen M. Reinhart, and Christoph Trebesch: Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo: "220,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering 91 countries.... Returns on external sovereign bonds have been sufficiently high to compensate for risk. Real ex-post returns averaged 7% annually across two centuries, including default episodes, major wars, and global crises... an excess return of around 4% above US or UK government bonds... are hard to reconcile with canonical theoretical models and with the degree of credit risk.... Full repudiation is rare; the median haircut is below 50%...